A Beginners Guide to Kassadin

NOTE: I don’t claim to be a master level Kassadin player, but I understand him for the most part. This only a beginner’s guide for new players to learn the basics of Kassadin. I know when I first played him, I wish I knew all of this information.

Recently, I’ve been playing a lot of Kassadin top. I love him! I love the way he can outplay his opponent with his Riftwalk and even proceed to juke entire teams, making him one of the most agile and mobile champs out there. Yet my favorite part of him is his chase ability. Having a built in slow that punishes opponents for using spells and a gap closer on a 6 second cool down is insane, and probably makes it the best chase in the game. So let’s take a quick look at his abilities:

Passive- Void Stone
Kassadin takes 15% reduced magic damage and ignores unit collision.

Q- Null Sphere
Kassadin fires an orb of void energy at a target enemy, dealing magic damage and interrupting channels. The excess energy forms around himself, granting a shield that absorbs magic damage for 1.5 seconds.

W- Nether Blade
P: Kassadin's basic attacks deal 20 (+10% AP) bonus magic damage on-hit.
A: Kassadin charges his Nether Blade, causing his next basic attack to deal bonus magic damage, gains 50 range and restore a percentage of his missing mana (quintupled against champions).

E- Force Pulse
P: Kassadin draws energy from spells cast in his vicinity, gaining a charge whenever a spell is cast near him (including his own spells). Upon reaching 6 charges, Kassadin gains the ability to cast Force Pulse.
A: Kassadin can emit a pulse of void energy, dealing magic damage and slowing enemies in an 80º cone in front of him for 1 second.

R- Riftwalk
Kassadin flashes to a nearby location, dealing magic damage to enemy units within 150 range upon arrival.
Each subsequent Riftwalk within the next 20 seconds costs double the mana and deals bonus damage, stacking up to 4 times (Max 1200 mana).

 

The only way to play Kassadin 

Now let’s talk about his build, and I honestly feel like there are so many different ways to approach it, but the one thing that will never change is his start. You will 99.9% of the time go Crystalline Flask Potions because Kassadin’s early is game very shaky due to him not being an early game champion, but rather a late game pain. After that the build becomes how you want to play the lane.

I personally prefer to have mid game aggression so I’ll go Rod of Ages into Sheen with the intention of getting Lich Bane, while a good friend of mine thinks Kassadin is best at 30 minutes so he will go Tier into Rod then Hourglass. Over all, it really becomes preference of which item’s you build out of this pool: A spell blade item (Lich Bane but I have been trying out Iceborne Gauntlet and have gotten decent results from it, although it doesn’t out put the damage I prefer), Rod of Ages, Archangel’s Staff, Hourglass, Deathcap, Void Staff, and I can see and item like Frozen Heart being fine if they have a very heavy AD comp. Here is a quick breakdown on where I would build each:

Winning lane: I would personally go Rod into Lich Bane then into Hourglass into Deathcap. My reasoning for going Rod instead of Lich Bane first is because the mana rod provides you will allow you have constant damage when you get Riftwalk while the Lich Bane won’t. If you are absolutely crushing lane I could then say that going Lich Bane first would be fine, only if you go into a mana item like Tier or Rod very quickly after. If not you could start to run out of mana quickly and fall behind.

Even in lane: Just go the solid Rod into Tier build. That will allow you to get the amount of sustain you need later in the game. After you have your Rod and Tier built, it all depends on how your lane is going then. If you’re winning I would go into Lich Bane and then into Deathcap because in theory you’re ahead so the mana you have will be fine for the rest of the game and your job in the game is to just hard carry. If you’re even, just build what the game needs. Hourglass is always a good choice, and I would also go that if I were behind.

Behind in lane: This is where you have problems. The only way you’ll get back into the game before 40 minutes is calling the jungler or mid laner up. If you’re against a high damage top laner like Riven or Gnar, the mid laner may be the best choice. This will give them a kill or assist gold and help them if they’re also losing lane, or it will get them even further ahead, but only call them up them up when it’s safe. Against any other laner the jungler should be fine if they can spam skills to activate your CC, or if they have a CC they can use.

 

So you have your build figured out, now it’s time to figure out how we should level our spells.

That will be the standard leveling pattern. You max Null Sphere first due to it being your primary poke, but the shield it grants is also pretty helpful when laning or chasing someone who can kite well. The Force Pulse max second is also really good because it will be your secondary damage source, and eventually super-fast wave clear.

The only other acceptable Kassadin skin

So your basic Kassadin lane should go like this: Poke them down with Q and E, get mana back off of minions or the enemy champ with W. When you’re ready to all in, you must make sure you have your E up, then you R in, E, Q, W. This should be a decent amount of damage that will force a flash or force them to just take it. Then you can proceed to get your mana back up and repeat the process until they die.

Here are the Runes and Masteries I suggest going for Kassadin:

The runes are pretty important here. The scaling hp seals will really help with transitioning into late game by giving you the tankiness you will need on top of the tank stats from Rod of Ages. The AP will allow you to build Tier without getting immediately punished for not having AP, and the scaling AP will also give you a boost midgame after you get AP items. The magic pen is pretty obvious here: allows you to do fine against laners like Mundo who can get a magic resist item early and not be punished for it. The masteries are pretty self-explanatory: basic mage masteries with the 21/9/0.

So again like I stated before, I’m not a challenger level Kassadin player, but he is one of my favorite champions now and with how many games I’ve played on him I’ve learned a few things here and there. And remember, the only way to play Kassadin is with the Deep One skin, so be sure to pick that up next time it’s available. I want to know how you feel about Kassadin so go ahead and Tweet me @chad_bubbles and while you’re there, why not follow me to get all the updates with crazy new Kassadin ideas and to find my flavor of the month champion.

Until next time.